Ward 13 — Toronto Centre
Toronto Centre is the heart of downtown — Regent Park (Canada's first social-housing development, now mid redevelopment), St. James Town (one of Canada's most densely populated neighbourhoods), Cabbagetown, the Church-Wellesley Village, St. Lawrence, the Eaton Centre, and part of the financial district all sit inside this ward. It's dense, fast-growing, and carries more live City infrastructure work — watermain, sewer, bridge, streetscape — than almost any other ward on file, plus a major transit project (the Ontario Line's East Harbour station) landing at its eastern edge.
The race & the 2022 baseline
- Office: Councillor, Ward 13 - Toronto Centre
- Seats: 1
- Incumbent: Chris Moise — running in 2026: yes — open seat: no
2022 result: Chris Moise won by 30.2 percentage points over the runner-up — a landslide, not a close call. Source: City of Toronto official 2022 election results, as_of 2026-08-16.
This ward’s own 2022 turnout was 28.81% (23,073 of 80,096 eligible electors cast a ballot) — compared to a citywide 2022 turnout of 29.7% that year. Source: City of Toronto, City Clerk’s Office, “Elections – Voter Statistics” (2022 dataset), cross-checked against the Clerk’s own 2022 Municipal Election Report.
Who’s running here in 2026 (9)
Every candidate filed in this ward as of 2026-08-16, alphabetical by surname, identical fields for every name. Bios are synthesized only from each candidate’s own published campaign material and registry facts — never from news coverage, opposition material, or this project’s own judgment (see Receipts below).
Walied Khogali Ali
Walied Khogali Ali is a candidate for Toronto City Council, Ward 13 (Toronto Centre), registered on May 1, 2026. His campaign site describes him as a Regent Park resident and community activist who co-chaired the Regent Park Social Development Plan, stating this helped secure $26.8 million in community benefits for the ward. His platform, 'Respect Our Communities,' lists six priorities: income-based rather than market-based affordable housing; expanding Social Development Plans citywide; a 'Community Space Guarantee' for centres and cultural hubs; a city-run youth jobs program; universal school meals and community food hubs; and climate measures including a maximum-heat bylaw and expanded tree canopy.
Joe Cadeau
Joe Cadeau is a candidate for Toronto City Council, Ward 13 (Toronto Centre), registered on May 6, 2026. His campaign site describes 15 years living in the ward, volunteer work at a food-bank program at St. Bartholomew's Church, and past service on the Ward Council for Toronto Centre and the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association. His platform lists four priorities: accountability for over-budget city projects, citing specific supportive-housing and drop-in-centre examples; stronger community engagement through resident associations and open consultation; affordability, including a proposed freeze on salary increases for city staff earning over $150,000; and expanding non-police crisis response for calls such as wellness checks.
Tom Cai
Tom Cai is a candidate for Toronto City Council, Ward 13 (Toronto Centre), registered on May 14, 2026. His campaign site describes him as a grassroots candidate campaigning on affordability. His platform calls for distance-based TTC fares that could lower some rides to 50 cents, funded by what he describes as ending 'corruption and mismanagement' at city hall rather than higher taxes; stronger tenant protections against rent hikes and evictions; opposition to condo overdevelopment displacing small businesses; an increased Vacant Homes Tax directed to affordable housing and TTC reform; and restarting supervised consumption sites, which his site frames as a response to drug use in parks and residential buildings.
Victoria Davis
Victoria Davis is a candidate for Toronto City Council, Ward 13 (Toronto Centre), registered on May 26, 2026. Her campaign website could not be reached on August 14, 2026 due to a bot-detection block; this bio is based on a August 5, 2026 capture. That capture describes her platform under the phrase 'an everyday person for everyday people,' listing priorities including housing as a human right, more public washrooms, connecting residents to nature and green space, neurodivergence and disability awareness, support for entrepreneurs and small businesses, improved transit, and community safety. Her site states she draws on the Seven Sacred Grandfather teachings of Anishinaabe culture and describes her own background as an immigrant and disabled person.
Norman MacLeod
Norman MacLeod is a candidate for Toronto City Council, Ward 13 Toronto Centre, in the 2026 municipal election, registered on August 7, 2026. As of August 14, 2026, no campaign website or published platform had been located.
Chris Moise
Chris Moise is the incumbent city councillor for Ward 13 (Toronto Centre), registered as a candidate for re-election on July 20, 2026. His campaign site, headed 'Re-Elect Chris Moise,' presents a record of his current term rather than a forward platform, including citing more than 10,000 new home construction starts and over 1,000 affordable housing units, TTC fare freezes for three consecutive years, expansion of the Toronto Community Crisis Service, and public-space projects including the Allan Gardens Master Plan and a new district library in Moss Park. He previously served as a Toronto District School Board trustee.
Curran Stikuts
Curran Stikuts is a candidate for Toronto City Council, Ward 13 (Toronto Centre), registered on May 1, 2026. His campaign site describes over a decade at The 519 Community Centre, most recently as Director of Advocacy and Strategic Communications, and service on Toronto Public Health's mental-health and drug-strategy panel. His platform, 'Affordable, Beautiful, Connected & Safe,' calls for stronger tenant and anti-displacement protections, properly maintained parks and public spaces, closer coordination between residents and city hall, and a safety approach combining prevention with a response to street-level disorder. He is endorsed by the Toronto & York Region Labour Council, according to his site.
Daniel Tate
Daniel Tate is a candidate for Toronto City Council, Ward 13 (Toronto Centre), registered on July 22, 2026. His campaign site, under the slogan 'Integrity. Accountability. Vision.,' calls for ending what he describes as failed drug policies in favour of treatment, recovery and accountability; stronger enforcement in parks and on transit; fiscal responsibility through audits of city spending; and merit-based hiring at city hall. His platform also proposes reversing the renaming of Yonge-Dundas Square, stating the change 'lacked public support, transparency, and was universally disliked.' The site describes Toronto's operating budget as having more than doubled since 2013.
Nicki Ward
Nicki Ward is a candidate for Toronto City Council, Ward 13 (Toronto Centre), registered on May 1, 2026. Her campaign site describes more than three decades of work on human rights, housing rights and disability rights, and identifies her as an equity-seeking and disabled person who has at times experienced housing insecurity. Her platform, framed around accountability, states that a councillor's job is to hold city departments to measurable outcomes rather than internal process, describing this as 'Not Performance Politics — Substance.' Her site references linked commentary on creating more housing co-ops, making the TTC safer, and addressing what she calls a density deficit.
Geography & boundaries
Legally defined (Elections Ontario boundary text, reproduced on Wikipedia): starts at Sherbourne St. North & Bloor St. East, north to Rosedale Valley Road, east to the Don River, south along the Don to Mill Street, west to Parliament Street, west to The Esplanade/Berkeley, along The Esplanade to Yonge, north to Front St. W., southwest to Bay, north to Dundas W., east to Yonge, north to College, west to Bay, north to Charles St. W., east to Yonge, south to Charles St. E., east to Mount Pleasant Road, northeast to Bloor, east back to Sherbourne. In plain terms: bounded roughly by Bay/College/Yonge/Dundas on the west, The Esplanade on the south, the Don River on the east, and Rosedale Valley Road/Bloor/Mount Pleasant/Charles on the north. Community council: Toronto and East York. Named areas: Regent Park, St. James Town, Cabbagetown, Church and Wellesley, St. Lawrence, Garden District, Toronto Metropolitan University, the Eaton Centre, part of the financial district (east side of Bay St.). [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_13_Toronto_Centre, accessed 2026-08-14] [Source: https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/947e-CityPlanning-Map-Ward-13.pdf (City of Toronto ward map), accessed 2026-08-14]
Civic texture — what’s live here
- East Harbour / Ontario Line. East Harbour, on the ward's eastern edge (Leslieville/Riverside border area), is planned as one of Toronto's largest single employment developments — roughly 60 acres, ~1.3M sq ft of office space, with potential to employ up to 50,000 people at full build-out. An Ontario Line station is planned on-site, connecting to downtown and, via a Science Centre interchange, to the Eglinton Crosstown. The East Harbour Transit Hub is targeted to open 2028 (GO Transit) and 2031 (Ontario Line). [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Harbour_Transit_Hub, accessed 2026-08-14] [Source: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2022/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-223065.pdf (City staff report on East Harbour Transit-Oriented Communities), accessed 2026-08-14]
- St. Lawrence library relocation. The Toronto Public Library's St. Lawrence branch (171 Front St. E.) is relocating; the City confirmed in December 2025 it purchased a heritage building at 339 Queen St. E. for a new branch targeted to open 2028, after an earlier plan to co-locate at 125 The Esplanade (inside the rebuilt St. Lawrence Market North) proved too complex/costly. Some neighbourhood pushback was reported over the new site being nearly 1 km from the current one. [Source: https://www.toronto.ca/news/toronto-public-librarys-st-lawrence-branch-to-relocate-to-new-30000-square-foot-location-on-the-esplanade/, accessed 2026-08-14] [Source: https://www.blogto.com/city/2025/12/toronto-neighbourhood-library-branch-1-km-away/, accessed 2026-08-14]
- Mixed-use development, ward-wide (dated context). A June 2023 UrbanToronto ward-level development report characterized Ward 13 as having significant mixed-use development activity underway; treat as historical texture pending a fresh pull, not a current count. [Source: https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2023/06/utpro-instant-reports-mixed-use-development-going-big-ward-13-toronto-centre.52895, accessed 2026-08-14 — page title/existence confirmed via search, full text not independently re-fetched]
- Active City capital works, 2026. The City's own Ward 13 profile page lists an unusually dense set of live 2026 construction notices — watermain replacement and road resurfacing on Berkeley, Bowman/Sackville, Ontario Street, Scott Street, Grosvenor/Queen's Park Crescent, and Yonge Street (Melinda to Wellington); preliminary design work on Church/Wellesley and Monteith Street infrastructure; and a Sherbourne Street bridge rehabilitation over Rosedale Valley Road (notice dated September 2025). Several notices carry 2026 dates as recent as July 2026. [Source: https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/neighbourhoods-communities/ward-profiles/ward-13-toronto-centre/, accessed 2026-08-14, page itself dated "modified July 31, 2026"]
Transit & development
Subway: the ward is served by parts of TTC Line 1 (Yonge-University, e.g. College, Wellesley, Bloor-Yonge stations sit on/near its boundary) and Line 2 (Bloor-Danforth, e.g. Castle Frank near the eastern edge); exact station-to-ward assignment not independently verified against the boundary polygon — named as general context, not a formal join. Major transit project: the Ontario Line's East Harbour station (§3), plus the existing GO/Union Station corridor at the ward's southwest edge. Development: City planning activity is notably concentrated around East Harbour (employment lands) and the St. Lawrence/Waterfront area (see library relocation, §3) rather than one single site.
Local commons
- St. Lawrence Branch, Toronto Public Library — currently 171 Front St. E.; relocating to a new building at 339 Queen St. E., targeted 2028. [Source: https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/stlawrence/, accessed 2026-08-14]
- St. Lawrence Market — Front St. E. & Jarvis St., a major public market and civic landmark inside the ward. [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Lawrence_Market, accessed 2026-08-14]
- Light research pass only — a fuller branch/CRC/park list needs the formal geospatial join named in the plan (§6), not this brief.
Toronto Public Library branches and Parks, Forestry & Recreation community/recreation centres located inside this ward’s boundary, joined by geographic coordinates (see Receipts) — complete citywide datasets for both layers, every ward covered.
Public libraries (3)
- Parliament Street — 269 Gerrard Street East, Toronto, On, M5A 2G3
- St. James Town — 495 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, On, M4X 1K7
- St. Lawrence — 171 Front Street East, Toronto, On, M5A 4H3
Community & recreation centres (6)
- John Innes Community Recreation Centre — 150 Sherbourne St
- Moss Park Arena — 140 Sherbourne St
- Pam Mcconnell Aquatic Centre — 640 Dundas St E
- Regent Park Community Centre — 402 Shuter St
- St. Lawrence Community Recreation Centre — 230 The Esplanade
- Wellesley Community Centre — 495 Sherbourne St
Parks aren’t listed here: parks joining is partial citywide — not shown rather than shown unevenly. The citywide parks join has fetched and joined 400 of the dataset’s 1,511 Park-type rows so far; that 400-row sample isn’t evenly distributed enough per ward to publish per-ward park lists or counts responsibly yet.
Local media landscape
- TheBulletin.ca ("Journal of Downtown Toronto") — grew out of the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Community Bulletin, now mailed to roughly 70,000 addresses monthly across most of Downtown Toronto, including St. Lawrence and Cabbagetown. [Source: https://thebulletin.ca/, accessed 2026-08-14]
Networks & local commons
As of August 17, 2026, this project's public organization registry maps 101 organizations directly to Ward 13 (Toronto Centre) — corrected the same day from the 8 this brief had stated since mid-August, when a registry-wide bug was found: the public ward pages had been reading only the single canonical `"Ward 13 (Toronto Centre)"` tag spelling and silently missing every alternate format the registry's own geography join (`org_placements.csv`) already resolves (bare `"Ward 13"`, a bare riding name, and more). The 8 organizations named below remain this ward's own individually-verified, hand-researched anchors — that research is untouched by this fix. The 93 more behind today's 101 total are principally bulk City/CRA register rows (early-years childcare, K-12 parent councils) captured registry-wide rather than ward-by-ward, carrying the weaker `seed-web-verified` status rather than a direct confirmation; 33 of the 101 total carry `verified-live` status, including:
- Community Civic Engagement Collaborative (Downtown East Votes) — a civic-engagement collaborative covering Regent Park, Moss Park, St. James Town, and Corktown. https://www.downtowneastvotes.ca/
- Regent Park TV — a community media outlet. https://www.regentpark.tv/
- Bay Cloverhill Community Association (BCCA) — a residents' association also active along the Ward 11 boundary. https://www.baycloverhill.com/
- Cabbagetown Residents Association (CRA) — a residents' association. https://cabbagetowner.com/
- Regent Park Neighbourhood Association (RPNA) — a neighbourhood association. https://www.regentparkna.ca/aboutus
- St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association (SLNA) — a neighbourhood association. https://www.slna.ca/
These are a starting point, not a finished map. This brief's Local Commons section above already names Ward 13's civic-infrastructure anchors; those are the next nodes the sweep will connect these organizations to as it goes deeper, and city-wide organization mapping is underway ward by ward to reach the rest of this ward's faith communities, resident and tenant associations, cultural groups, service organizations, and the dozens of other categories this project tracks.
If you lead, work with, or simply know of an organization rooted in this ward, this project's tribes directory at https://unitetolove.ca/tribes/directory.html is where to add it or correct what's already there — every addition is checked against a public source before it's published.
The ward in numbers (2021 Census)
| Population | 116,930 |
|---|---|
| Median age | 34.8 |
| Median household income (2020) | $65,000 |
| Renter / owner household split | 70.0% / 30.0% |
| Top home languages (excl. English/French) | Mandarin (4,655), Spanish (1,630), Yue (Cantonese) (1,445) |
| Land area | 5.9 km² |
What else is on your ballot
Every Toronto voter marks three races on October 26, 2026: this ward’s councillor (above), the citywide mayor, and one school trustee.
- Mayor (citywide — the same race for every ward) — 42 candidates registered as of 2026-08-14, identical treatment: the mayoral race card.
- School trustee — one seat, for whichever of Toronto’s four school boards matches your school-support designation. Trustee-district boundaries do not in general line up with the 25 council wards; here is what this project has established for THIS ward, tiered by how confidently each is sourced:
- Conseil scolaire Viamonde (French public) — Toronto-Centre (Secteur 2, Annexe CENTRAL) (race card) — confirmed exact from the board’s own official regulatory determination document (Détermination et répartition des conseillers scolaires, Conseil scolaire Viamonde, March 2026, Annexe C).
- TCDSB — not established for this ward: no reliable source pairs it to a specific TCDSB ward (a named gap, not a guess).
- CSC MonAvenir (French Catholic) — this ward falls in one of MonAvenir’s two Toronto régions (Toronto-Est or Toronto-Ouest); the board has not published a ward-level boundary document, so which région applies here is not resolved — a region-level statement, not a guess at which one.
- Toronto District School Board (TDSB) — local reporting places this ward in TDSB Ward 7 — not yet verified against an official board document (race card); see this ward’s precision note below.
This ward’s trustee-crosswalk precision note: TDSB CONTESTED: CP24 (2026-04-28, dedicated ward-map article) names Toronto Centre in Ward7; Beach Metro (2026-05-14) separately describes a new Ward5 built from 'former Toronto-Danforth + former Toronto Centre + former Spadina-Fort York.' One city ward cannot sit in two TDSB wards, so this is a genuine unresolved conflict between two secondary sources, not a guess - see receipts. Provisional value (Ward7) chosen because CP24's article is a dedicated, single-purpose ward-boundary piece using current city-ward names throughout, versus Beach Metro's incidental use of pre-2026 TDSB ward labels. TCDSB: NOT ESTABLISHED. Viamonde exact. MonAvenir not disambiguated.
Get involved — from thirty seconds to a year
Everything on this page is published so that anyone who lives here can use it: there is no membership, no gate and nothing to belong to. If you want to do something with it, the doors below start at thirty seconds and stop wherever you like — every one of them is optional, every one of them is free to copy or fork, and none of them asks who you vote for.
- The ladder — what you can do today: thirty seconds, an hour, an evening, a week, a season, a year. Every rung a real door, every rung optional.
- The Harvest — add three lines to one public record: a vision for 2030, a complaint about what is broken, or a neighbour worth naming.
- Add your name to the count — a name and a way to reach you is the whole first ask; everything after that is optional.
- The mobilization framework — for anyone who already leads a room and wants that room, and every room like it, to act together. Free, forkable, evidence-based, nothing to join.
- The plan — one year, all-out — what this city could do in a single year, month by month, with every number labelled as a target rather than a promise.
- The conversation kits — free, open kits for running your own conversation about Toronto’s future, at a kitchen table or in a hall.
- Mutual aid — how neighbours already help each other across Toronto, what a block circle is, and how to start one where you live.
- The letters — written to the people this city keeps writing about instead of to. Read one; pass it to someone it is about.
What this page doesn’t cover yet
This ward’s research brief names these additional gaps, plainly, rather than guessing over them:
- Exact subway-station-to-ward assignment (§4) is stated from general geography, not a verified point-in-polygon check — flagged, not asserted as precise.
- The June 2023 UrbanToronto mixed-use development report's full text was not independently re-fetched (search-result confirmation of the article's existence/title only) — its specific project list should be pulled directly before use in a public-facing profile.
- No current-year (2026) comprehensive development-application count was pulled for this ward beyond the two named items in §3 — a full pipeline needs the City's Application Information Centre, not attempted.
- Trustee-ward crosswalk not attempted here — Ward 13 is one of the 3 wards where `profiles/` already has a positive trustee match (TCDSB Ward 04); out of this brief's scope to revisit.
- A full address-to-trustee-district crosswalk is not complete for every board (school board trustee races do not share the 25-ward boundary map): for this ward, TDSB carries a news-reported mapping, not yet verified against an official board document and TCDSB is not established; CSC MonAvenir is resolved only to a region (Toronto-Est or Toronto-Ouest), never a ward, for every ward citywide. Conseil scolaire Viamonde is the one board fully resolved, exact, for every ward. See the tiered breakdown and this ward’s precision note in “What else is on your ballot” above.
- Libraries and community/recreation centres are now geospatially joined to this ward’s boundary (see “What’s live here, by the numbers” under Local commons above — complete citywide datasets for both layers). Parks joining is partial citywide; not shown rather than shown unevenly (400 of 1,511 City-classified park-type rows fetched and joined so far).
Receipts — where every figure on this page comes from
- Council race and 2022 baseline: this project’s Toronto elections registry (race ON-toronto-council-w13), as_of 2026-08-16.
- Filed 2026 candidates: the same registry, 9 rows for this race, as_of 2026-08-16 — re-pulled from the City Clerk’s candidate feed and refreshed after nominations close 2026-08-21.
- Candidate bios: synthesized only from each candidate’s own published campaign material (their website, their own social accounts, their own platform document) and registry facts already on file — never from news coverage, opposition material, or inference beyond what the candidate has themself published. A candidate with no captured public material is stated plainly, never guessed over. As of 2026-08-14.
- 2021 Census figures: City of Toronto Ward Profiles (25-Ward Model), Statistics Canada 2021 Census custom tabulations, prepared by Strategic Initiatives, Policy & Analysis, City Planning Division, City of Toronto, December 2023 (`2023-wardprofiles-2011-2021-censusdata_rev0719.xlsx`, sheet "2021 One Variable"). Household income figures reflect the 2020 reference year used by the 2021 Census.
- Land area: City of Toronto Ward Profiles geographic-areas file, published December 2023 (`2023-WardProfiles-GeographicAreas.xlsx`).
- Geography, civic texture, transit/development, local commons, local media: this ward’s research brief, researched 2026-08-14 — full source list below.
- Dataset-wide registrant figures: the 2026-08-14 Toronto figures pull, from the City of Toronto Clerk’s official candidate feeds.
- This ward’s own 2022 turnout: City of Toronto, City Clerk’s Office, “Elections – Voter Statistics” (2022 dataset), cross-checked against the Clerk’s own 2022 Municipal Election Report. (per-ward figures joined 2026-08-15).
- Libraries and community/recreation centres: City of Toronto Open Data — Toronto Public Library branch list and the Parks, Forestry & Recreation “parks-and-recreation-facilities” dataset, joined to the 25-ward boundary layer by coordinates, 2026-08-15 (both layers complete citywide).
- School-board trustee crosswalk: Conseil scolaire Viamonde’s own official regulatory determination document (exact, all 25 wards); Toronto Catholic District School Board’s own published ward pages (exact where cited, one-of-two where noted unresolved); TDSB local news reporting (not yet verified against an official board document); CSC MonAvenir’s own election page (region-level only) — built 2026-08-15, see this ward’s precision note above.
This ward’s research-brief sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_13_Toronto_Centre — accessed 2026-08-14
- https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/947e-CityPlanning-Map-Ward-13.pdf — accessed 2026-08-14
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Harbour_Transit_Hub — accessed 2026-08-14
- https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2022/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-223065.pdf — accessed 2026-08-14
- https://www.toronto.ca/news/toronto-public-librarys-st-lawrence-branch-to-relocate-to-new-30000-square-foot-location-on-the-esplanade/ — accessed 2026-08-14
- https://www.blogto.com/city/2025/12/toronto-neighbourhood-library-branch-1-km-away/ — accessed 2026-08-14
- https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2023/06/utpro-instant-reports-mixed-use-development-going-big-ward-13-toronto-centre.52895 — accessed 2026-08-14 (title/existence confirmed via search only, dated June 2023)
- https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/neighbourhoods-communities/ward-profiles/ward-13-toronto-centre/ — accessed 2026-08-14 (page dated "modified July 31, 2026")
- https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/stlawrence/ — accessed 2026-08-14
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Lawrence_Market — accessed 2026-08-14
- https://thebulletin.ca/ — accessed 2026-08-14
Per-candidate research notes, QA flags, and source-capture logs are kept in this project’s internal working files, not published here; every bio and every fact on this page is drawn from that work but the page itself states the fact, not the working notes behind it.
Found a mistake?
That’s the system working. Every figure on this page traces to a public source or a candidate’s own published material, cited in the Receipts section above; if one is wrong, out of date, or reads differently than the source supports, we want to know before anyone else repeats it. Send it to the corrections page — it takes thirty seconds, and every correction is published, dated, and left visible.